Achlys

Achlys is a minor deity who presides over the domains of death and loss. For most of recorded history, she has been little understood and largely forgotten. She rose to prominence in Y1111 because of the work of her Prophet Nekrotzar Oakenheart.

Historical Worship

Worship of Achlys seems to have been more prominent in ages past. Archaeological sites near the Liberty Coast have occasionally contained references to her name on broken amphoras and eroded tablets, though the language surrounding it predates Common so far as to be unrecognizable to divination magic. From these few extant references, contemporary sages have largely categorized her with the Olympian Dynasty, considering her a forgotten or perhaps corrupted daughter of either Mercury or Boréas.
In the philosophy of the Aldanuvian Orders of Filia, Achlys is considered a part of the Elvish element of nwyfre and therefore within the domain of worship of the wind. The only modern depiction of Achlys exists as part of a large mosaic at Kulu'dara-el-Filia, in which she appears as a thin silver figure with indistinct features.
A few rare and dubiously sourced books of ancient religion retell the Myth of the First and Last Breath, which claims that Achlys was once one of the first humans ever created by Fricka, and the very first to fall ill and die. Fricka gathered up her last breath—the first dying breath of any mortal—and with it brought her into godhood.

Modern Resurgence

Achlys's first known appearance in the Age of Complexity was on 31 August Y1110, when she appeared and spoke to Nekrotzar Oakenheart (then a young acolyte of the Order of Sarastro) on the streets of Urbana al-Sona. He left the Sarastrans immediately to become her Cleric and swore enmity against his former order (both at the request of his new goddess and for personal reasons).

"You espouse antiquity as something that guides you, but your interpretation of ages past has done nothing to make you truly understand what it means to live in the present... If a deity falls, another will take its place. Sarastro—I stand before you as your own loss."
—Nekrotzar the Death-Deliverer, from his Declamation of Recourse

In the Edict of the Eclipse, Sarastro promised that in his ascent to godhood he would slay the "final breath of death." At the altar of the Prime Sarastran Temple, he summoned a celestial avatar that he and his apostles claimed was Achlys into a crystal casket, with the apparent intention of sacrificing her. The avatar that appeared was a thin human woman made of silvery mist, with chin-length hair and a flowing shawl. Unusually for a god, eyewitnesses describe her as middle-aged or elderly. Nekrotzar freed her from the casket before killing Sarastro. He has later stated that this was undoubtedly an avatar of his goddess Achlys.

Divine Classification

God

Realm

Limbo